1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to mnemonic methods and mnemonic systems, and particularly to computerized systems and tangible items utilizing the mnemonic methods and systems. Examples of tangible media include computer-readable media storing computer applications, websites, online co-creation communities monitored by the mnemonic system, games such as card games, books, and curatorials at locations such as museums and theme parks or corporate offices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the development of the printing press, humans, have erased, rested, weakened, and left unused their mental discipline and memory retention abilities. No longer requiring dependence on solely their memory, and being able to seek outside aid (i.e. books, words, and external means of storing information), many have weakened their individual minds at the opposite rate of which these external sources manage to keep their information.
As time has passed, technologies evolved, and methods of storing information progressed from floppy disks to CD-ROMs, USB's to external hard drives, and wireless transfers to Bluetooth connections, humans have weakened their minds and their ability to work independent of these external devices. Be it in work, hobbies, government, facts, stories, speeches, lessons, across the board possibilities in the knowledge spectrum have allowed people, with the aid of technology, culture, and dependency on external aids, to lose or dull the mind's ability to recall, store, and remember information in that specific order.
Simonides invented a mnemonic system in approximately 550 BC. The system built memories by combining them with a series of places or loci. It was developed extensively until the creation of Gutenberg's printing press. The second step in the early systems was the creation of shocking images to attach to the specific items the individual user wished to remember. The following step was the placement of these shocking images (i.e. memorable images) in the place or locus in the order one wished to remember it. The recollection part of these steps required a user to visit these places in their mind; starting in the beginning, middle, or end and working their way through or back in sequential order to recall everything the user wished to remember. The process required the repetition of this mental journey through the established place or loci in order to ingrain the images, words, or items into one's memory. In other words, the Simonides mnemonic system, as it progressed through time, taught users to remember things by going through an entire order sequentially (i.e. from start to finish in a sequential order). Simonides and the future contributors to the art also taught that to make a memory memorable that the image should be involved in an action. That is, the object should be moving or doing something uncommon in order for it to become memorable to the user.
In the early 17th century, Johann Winkelmann made changes to advance the art. In 1648, he created a code to convert numbers into phonetic sounds in order to remember long series of numbers like the value of pi for example. In the 1870's, Hermann Ebbringhaus, the academic psychologist, was the first to study memory in labs. He concluded people have not significantly changed during the entire evolution of man. He believed the difference between a person in 2011 and a caveman is mostly their memory. Marcus Dwight created the Loissette system in 1887 but was considered a fraud. Dwight made his fortune before people noticed his inaccuracies. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson developed the skilled memory theory and explained how and why memory is improved upon through SWAT experiments. Harvard psychologist George Miller developed the theory known as, “The magical 7, plus or minus 2.” The person that concentrated on the opposite of developing memory retention is Gordon Bell. This Microsoft scientist is part of a new movement in taking externalization of memory to logical extremes. It is sometimes described as the final escape from the biology of remembering. He keeps a digital surrogate memory and coined this concept as “lifelogging”.
Many of the figures connected to the art of memory researched and promoted the use of one or more particular steps involved in the art of memory technique. All of the listed scientists, with the exception of Tony Buzan, were not widely recognized. Tony Buzan has researched mnemonic systems. This man developed and sold the concept of mind maps. Tony Buzan was the first to bring the concept of remembering through mind maps to the mass market. One of Tony Buzan's disciples is Raemon Matthews, a high-school teacher in the South Bronx, who taught his students Tony Buzan's mindmapping concept of memorization. This group later went on to be coined “the talented tenth”. The most recently acclaimed-to-fame man associated with the art of memory is Joshua Foer, the author of Moonwalking with Einstein.